1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an enclosure assembly designed to receive explosive devices and confine or at least mitigate explosive forces released by their detonation. The enclosure assembly is especially suitable for use with public transportation equipment, such as an in-flight storage receptacle for passenger luggage and other parcels, where suppression of explosive forces from explosive devices hidden in passenger luggage or parcels is essential for the continued safe operation of an aircraft, a boat, train, or other such types of vehicles.
2. Description of Related Art
Over the past decades, there has been (both the perception of and in fact) an increasing threat of terrorism, both domestic and foreign. Perhaps nowhere is this threat more insidious or the public more vulnerable than in air travel, where terrorist tactics, such as the threat of in-flight detonation of an explosive device, undermines the public's confidence in air travel and jeopardizes the lives of the aircraft crew and passengers.
Due to the heavy flow of air traffic and the pressure exerted by airline customers to comply with flight schedules, especially scheduled arrival times and questions of privacy, it is not feasible for airport personnel to search each parcel of luggage individually for hidden explosive devices. Accordingly, to counteract and discourage terrorist threats, there has been a heightened visible presence of airport security equipment and personnel assigned to locate and identify explosive parcels before they are loaded onto an aircraft. Among the equipment and measures exercised for detecting explosive devices in parcels without requiring internal inspection of the parcels are x-ray machines, metal detectors, and in some cased trained canines. Unfortunately, these preventative measures are not infallible, leaving the threat for hidden explosives set for in-flight detonation to be smuggled aboard an aircraft.
Concerns over inadequacies of the above-described anti-terrorist defenses have prompted discussions for the promulgation of regulations intended to supplement such defenses by providing another tier of anti-terrorist protection. Specifically, these discussions concern the provision of reinforced storage containers designed to store passenger luggage and other parcels and, in the case where explosive devices hidden in the luggage are not detected prior to aircraft lift-off, to confine and/or minimize the effect of any in-flight explosive force so as to safeguard the aircraft against catastrophic failure, as occurred in the Pan Am 109 flight. See, for example, Public Law 101-604: Aviation Security Improvement Act of 1990.
While various materials are known for making effectively reinforced explosion resistant containers, one of the most susceptible regions of such containers at the interface of the door and the containment structure. In particular, the release of an explosive force within the container tends to deform the containment structure and door in a radially outward manner. This tends to bend, rotate, and/or twist the sealing devices out of engagement, thereby permitting release of the explosive force, and pulling the door tangentially away from the containment structure. Most traditional blast containment doors relay on the stiffness of both the door and the door frame to resist these actions. These doors are sealed at discrete points, often using heavy duty sliding latches and the like. The stiffness required by these designs leads to heavy implementations. These designs are therefore not appropriate for many uses, such as on vehicles, where there is a weight penalty for such conventional designs. This is especially true in aviation applications.